Thursday, May 24, 2012

How to Start a Garden with Laughably Little Knowledge About Gardening

I know absolutely nothing about gardening.

Nothing.

And throughout my life, having little or no knowledge about
something has always irked me – and motivated me. It was this combination of
curiosity and frustration that has led to start learning about many things.
This desire to rid myself of ignorance pushed me to learn how to play the
piano, golf, make a documentary, be an actor, learn carpentry, play the guitar,
drive a backhoe, pull a trailer, ride a horse, raise chickens, use a sextant,
fly an airplane, and the list goes on. I love diving into new things. It’s why
I pick up new instruments. It’s why I read books. I’m obsessed with
accumulating knowledge. Right now I have a very long list of things I’m
learning about or am going to learn about - among them sailing, scuba diving,
botany, and cooking.

And, of course, gardening. Like I said, I know NOTHING about
gardening.

In theory, gardening is one of the most basic of human
endeavors –again, in theory. Somewhere long ago mankind figured out that instead
of just gathering wild fruits and vegetables, they could manipulate their
growth in a controlled environment and have better and more predictable
results. This was the birth of gardening.

But any person who has gardened their whole life will tell you
it’s not simple. At all. Gardening is an art. It has nuances, and generalities,
and specifics. There is a flow to it as well as a predictable unpredictability.
It takes a lifetime of accumulated knowledge to become truly great at
gardening. Keeping these caveats in mind I decided this year to embark on a
gardening adventure, aiming at best to be a mediocre gardener.

The first step was to clear a spot. The woman who owned the
house before made this easy. She already had a garden, so all I had to do was
clear it out. I did it all by hand because any obese man smoking a cigarette
and drinking a beer can go rent a tiller. I wanted to challenge myself. It took
a couple of weeks of intense labor but I finally got the garden cleared. In my
limited knowledge, the soil appeared to be healthy soil, full of nutrients and the garden sat in full sunlight for about six hours a day.

As I prepared the garden, I was constantly referencing
charts, tables, and YouTube videos. From what I gathered, you want to plant
after the last frost of the year. In the south, this usually falls in early
March or so. I finally picked a day and went to Lowe’s and arbitrarily picked
some fruits and vegetables to put in my garden. The next morning I went to work
planting the plants according to the spacing recommendations on the packaging.

That was my first mistake. Whatever the spacing
recommendation is on the package, in my opinion, should be doubled. I will
explain why later. I planted tomatoes, watermelon, potatoes, mint, onions, cucumbers,
green peppers, strawberries, carrots, okra, and lettuce. I stepped back and
admired my new garden. So far so good.

Hart decided to serve as a manager and oversee the project

The very next day, my National Weather Service weather alert
radio started blaring that we should expect strong storms that night. I stood
in the back door of my house and watched it hail on my new garden. Luckily, the
hailstones never got bigger than pea size. This would be the predictable
unpredictability I spoke of earlier. Unbelievably the next day it happened
AGAIN. Only this time, with Donna's help, I was prepared.

I’ve lived in Shreveport for a half a decade and never ONCE
did it hail, only to have it hail TWICE in a forty-eight hour period – which
just happened to be the first forty-eight hours after I planted my garden.
Not a good start, I thought. My only consolation was that my life did not depend on
the vegetables growing in my garden.

Then the skies cleared and my little garden took root. The
cucumbers, as it turns out, needed to be planted about 300 feet apart,
preferably in the middle of a soccer field or professional sports stadium. (I’m
exaggerating, but cucumbers definitely need some space…way more than was
suggested on the package.) It seems silly but the first time I noticed a fruit
actually growing, I was ecstatic. I preach a lot on this theme but it’s worth
repeating. We grow up in a society where things like cucumbers grow on Aisle 10
at the supermarket. When you actually see one growing and pull it straight from
the ground, you have a little “ah-ha!” moment. It was the same feeling I had
when I raised chickens in Waring, Texas. The first time I went to the coop,
grabbed an egg and then ate it for breakfast, I felt surprisingly strong sense
of empowerment.

Watermelon and cucumber on the left, tomatoes in the middle, and bell peppers on the right

My current challenge, as my garden continues to grow, is to
know when to harvest – especially the vegetables like potatoes that are
underground. About a week ago, I sacrificed one of my potato plants so I could
see what was going on underground. There was one small potato (which I ended up
eating so I wasn’t a total loss.) But now I know how far along the potato is at
one month. I sacrificed one plant to know what was going on with the other
nineteen.

As an aside, I should emphasize here that in any learning
process its okay to make mistakes and ask questions. One of the most important
lessons I learned about this is with horses. Someone told me once (and I can’t
remember who so forgive me whoever you are!) that when you’re learning to ride
a horse the first thing to know is this: you WILL fall off. So stop worrying
about that part. The second part is that AFTER you fall off you get back on. I
saw a lot of novice riders at Wind River Ranch that were so preoccupied with
worrying about falling off that they forgot to have fun and learn. That spirit
applies to any endeavor and it applies to gardening as well. I’m the first to
admit I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m also the first to ask questions and
glean information from ANY source I can find. Donna’s brother-in-law Jonathan
Patin had some suggestions for my tomatoes. My neighbors Ginger and Jason
shared some of their gardening experiences, and of course there’s the seemingly
infinite source of information called the Internet. The knowledge is everywhere
and it’s your responsibility to assemble it into a working format that you can
then apply to your endeavor, be it gardening or whatever.

About a month ago, I decided to pick the first fruit from my
garden. We called it the “Ceremonial First Fruit” which is an ancient tradition
that I started. I picked the biggest, plumpest strawberry on the plant, and
then marched it into the house as Donna snapped pictures.

Understanding the immense and powerful symbolism of the Ceremonial First Fruit, I cut it two and
served it up on two plates. We put a little sugar on that strawberry and ate it
in one bite. Everyone knows that any food you grow yourself automatically tastes
a little better.

The garden is an ongoing project. I tend it daily weeding it
and watering it, keeping a watchful eye on my field. Soon I believe we will
have a big potato harvest as well as tomatoes and cucumbers. My goal is to eat
a whole meal out of my garden. Stay tuned for more garden updates and more naturalist adventures!